Former Pirates beat writer from the Post-Gazette Charley Feeney passed away yesterday at the age of 89. Feeney came to the Post-Gazette in 1966 from a career in New York newspapers and covered the Pirates beat until he retired in 1986. In my mind, Feeney was an old fashioned newspaper guy, wearing a battered fedora and pounding a typewriter, like you see in old movies from the 1940's, straight from "The Front Page", and the tributes from his old colleagues in the obits today seem to reflect that impression of him.
There was a great story about him in Ed Bouchette's obituary of him in today's PG, which I will repeat here in case you missed it.
It seems that Feeney had trouble remembering names, so he called everyone "Pally". This led to Feeney himself assuming the nickname of Pally. Once when on deadline, Feeney called the Post-Gazette desk and said to the rewrite guy who answered, "Hey, Pally, this is Pally. Get me Pally."
Classic.
He was definitely from a different era of news coverage and reporting.
RIP Pally.
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